Tag: Fight of the Year

ICYMI: Here’s an absolute banger of a muay Thai fight between 17 year old phenom Sangmanee Sor Tienpo (red shorts) and tough as nails journeyman Hong Thanonchai Tor Sangtiennoi (blue shorts) that went down last week. I’ll let BloodyElbow’s Kyle McLachlan brief you on the significance of this absolutely incredible fight:

Sangmanee, once considered the best pound-for-pound fighter in the sport, is a four weight stadium champion. He has won the 105lb Lumpinee championship, and the Rajadamnern title at 108, 112 and 115lbs. A true phenom, he is a technical fighter with very good hands who has aspirations of representing Thailand in amateur boxing at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

2014 looked to be a great year of continued success for Sangmanee. He won the one-night four man tournament put on by Petyindee promotions, in which he came out on top of three of the very best fighters in Muay Thai today (Superbank, Superlek and Sam-A) but since then he has gone on the very worst run of his career, being dropped by a big punch and losing to Sam-A, then losing decisions to Thaksinlek Kiatniwat in both May and June.

Yesterdays bout was a quick turnaround for Sangmanee, and Thanonchai, a very strong competitor who has faced many top fighters in the 126lb division, was likely to be a stern test but a way to get back on track for Muay Thai’s teenage superstar.

Without giving too much away, let’s just say that the fight wasn’t nearly as easy for Sor Tienpo as it was supposed to be.

Let’s be honest here. No one saw last night coming. No one. That’s not to say that nobody believed Alexander Gustafsson was capable of beating or challenging Jon Jones, although those people were probably Swedish, rabid Jones-haters, or height aficionados. But no one predicted that Gustafsson would take the fight to Jones in such a complete manner that in addition to being the first man consistently hurt the champion, he would become the only man to ever land a takedown on Jones in the UFC. And if there was some visionary out there who managed to foresee this twist of fate, he didn’t expect the next wrinkle; that Jones, bent but unbroken, would rise to this challenge in the final two rounds with an onslaught that the challenger seemed to persevere through with only sheer will holding him up. When all was said and done, UFC 165 saw the best light-heavyweight title fight in history, possibly the fight of the year and most significantly, the birth of a rivalry between two young fighters in the sport’s marquee division.

So, first things first…I might have been a little hasty in dismissing Alexander Gustafsson. If there’s some small solace to take in being so incredibly wrong, it’s that there was plenty of company in that regard. The UFC focused on the challenger’s height as opposed to any of his actual skills — although to hear Dana White tell it, that’s because “he’s so tall” was considered a better selling point for UFC fans than constructing an intricate narrative contextualizing Gustafsson and his abilities within the history of Swedish combat sports. (In other words, the UFC thinks its fans are stupid. They’re not entirely wrong.) Others focused on Gustafsson’s relative lack of competition, or his performances relative to those of Jones’s. Almost every pundit came away with the same conclusion; this was Jones’s fight to lose.

That was completely incorrect. In the first round, Gustafsson got in his face, pressured Jones backwards as he landed punches. He took the fight to Jones. It was a smart strategy; Jones likes to keep his distance while he’s standing up through kicks, and moving in takes away the range required to successfully land those kicks. However, this normally comes with a caveat; moving in puts a fighter in danger of being taken down by Jones, which is the last thing they want. But Gustafsson didn’t let that deter him; in fact, he landed the first takedown attempt of the fight, the first in UFC history against Jones. It turned out there was a reason for his confidence. Throughout the fight, try as he might, Jones could not take Gustafsson down. For all the talk you hear about how fighter X is “in the best shape of his life” or “has shown massive improvements,” it rarely rings true. But Gustafsson was the exception to the rule last night.

The suits on Wall Street keep whispering about a ‘Halloween indicator‘ and how now is not a time to sell; rather we should sit back and let our riches mount. Call it what you will, but millions watched UFC on FOX and UFC 139 and concluded the same thing: Most fighter’s stocks are rising steadily. Even if you’re not sure which is the true Fight of the Year from this weekend — Dan Henderson vs. Marucio Rua or Eddie Alvarez vs. Michael Chandler — you’ll know how to safeguard your hypothetical MMA portfolio’s worth after playing another round of ‘Buy, Sell, Hold’.

Stephan Bonnar: Buy

It’s hard to believe that any TUF veteran could take nearly a year off from the sport and return with the engine firing on all cylinders, but Stephan Bonnar did just that. The BJJ schooling he dished out was almost as surprising as his apology to Josh Koscheck for making those damn shirts. Even that wasn’t the most unexpected thing to happen; one judge gave the ‘American Psycho’ a 30-25 victory. Grab hold of any unclaimed stock before he starts getting big fights and Dana declares him “in the mix.”